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Live-Action Library Wars Special to Air Before Film Sequel

posted on by Egan Loo

A live-action Toshokan Sensō: Book of Memories (Library Wars: Book of Memories) television special will air this fall, just before the live-action film sequel Library Wars: The Last Mission opens in Japan on October 10. While the film sequel will depict the larger war story of the Library Defense Force, the television special will focus on the daily lives of the force members with elements of romantic comedy. Hiro Arikawa's Toshokan Sensō (Library Wars) action novel series inspired the live-action franchise.

The TBS special will reunite the cast from the first movie, including V6 idol group member Junichi Okada (Tales from Earthsea, From Up On Poppy Hill) as Atsushi, Nana Eikura (Mei-chan no Shitsuji, Boku wa Imōto ni Koi o Suru) as Iku, and Sōta Fukushi as Hikaru Tezuka.

Also joining the cast in the special and the film sequel are Tori Matsuzaka (live-action Gatchaman, .hack//The Movie, live-action Kyō, Koi o Hajimemasu, Samurai Sentai Shinkenger) as Hikaru's older brother Satoshi Tezuka (pictured above) who approaches Iku, Tao Tsuchiya (live-action Rurouni Kenshin sequels, Arcana, Tokyo Sonata) as Komaki's childhood friend Marie Nakazawa (pictured below left) with a hearing impairment, and Aoi Nakamura (Kimi to Boku, Beck, Q.E.D., Ōoku: The Inner Chambers) as the curator Shūji Asahina (pictured below right) with a romantic connection to Shibasaki.

The sequel's story is set one and half years after the story of the first film, and the television special is set a half year before the film sequel. In this world, the "Media Improvement Law" regulates all forms of media. There is a struggle between the Media Improvement Committee which strictly and brutally censors with military force, and the Library Defense Force that opposes censorship to protect the freedoms of press and expression.

The story centers on Atsushi (Okada) — an elite soldier with brawn and stoic judgment in the task force of the Kantō Library Defense Force — and Iku (Eikura), the task force's only female member. She enlisted after admiring a member who rescued her when she was in high school.

The other cast members from the first film are reprising their roles: Kei Tanaka as Mikihisa Komaki, Sōta Fukushi as Hikaru Tezuka, Chiaki Kuriyama as Asako Shibasaki, Kōji Ishizaka as Gen Nishina, Naomi Nishida as Maki Origuchi, and Jun Hashimoto as Ryūsuke Genda. Eikura notes that she did not have many action scenes in the first film, but she will have more in the sequel. Fukushi teased that the sequel will develop Hikaru Tezuka's love life.

Director Shinsuke Satō (Gantz, Oblivion Island: Haruka and the Magic Mirror, The Princess Blade, Sand Chronicles) is returning for the sequel, and he began shooting the sequel in mid-December.

The first film opened in Japan in April 2013. It screened at Montreal's Fantasia International Film Festival, in San Francisco at the J-Pop Summit Festival, and in Los Angeles at the L.A. EigaFest.

The novel series already inspired three manga series (two in the shōjo magazine LaLa, and another in the male-oriented Monthly Comic Dengeki Daioh), a television anime series, and an anime film Toshokan Sensō: Kakumei no Tsubasa (Library War: The Wings of Revolution) in 2011. The first live-action film spawned its own series of Library "mini" Wars shorts.

Sources: Daily Sports, Sankei Sports, CinemaCafé.net


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